Temporal Malfunctions
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: A chronicle of Buffy's brief adventure as James T. Kirk, and their misadventures afterward. Now complete; covers TOS, STIV, STVII, STXI.
1. Transporter Malfunction

**Title**: Transporter Malfunction 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Category**: B:tVS/ST:TOS

**Summary**: There were some things about this future that Buffy was just never going to get used to. 400 words.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Spoilers**: General B:tVS and Star Trek: TOS

**Notes**: Back in April 2006, I put a drabble prompt meme up; Booster asked me for "ST:TOS crossover, Buffy/Kirk, transporter malfunction". Here it is, finally!

* * *

She'd been in this future-- not _her_ future, she'd long since figured out, but one pretty close to it-- for six years now, thanks to an accident involving her sister and a mid-apocalyptic burst of rogue magic, but there were some things that Buffy was just never going to get used to.

Replicators, for one thing. They took all the fun out of shopping! And aliens! You'd think they wouldn't bother her after all the demons she'd encountered, but the fact that non-humans were all _equal_ to Earthlings here kept catching her off guard.

And then there was this whole transporting thing-a-ma-jig. She'd been teleported by Willow before, so the whole disappearing and reappearing thing wasn't that big of a surprise, but the gizmo _did_ something in the process that set off all her Slayer instincts every time. She'd have written it off as a side effect of the sudden relocation to non-Earth-standard gravity and atmosphere-- because boy howdy, had her first step on an alien world freaked the Slayer in her big-time-- except for one thing: it happened on every return trip, too.

Like now, for example. Buffy frowned as a worse-than-usual wave of disorientation swept over her. She shifted her feet on the transporter pad, then nearly tripped as oddly long, unfamiliarly muscled legs responded.

That was when she noticed that no-one stood between her and the technician behind the transporter's console. Since she'd started out the trip standing _behind_ the Captain with the other two Security ensigns who'd accompanied the away team, that was very much of the bad.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Buffy glanced downward, taking in the distinctly flat expanse of gold tunic under her chin and the corresponding not-flatness at the front of the black trousers beneath it.

"Oh crap," she muttered in the Captain's voice. She'd dealt with a large variety of bizarre experiences in her life-- complete amnesia, being raised from the dead, having a magical sister thrust upon her, and dating vampires, just to name a few-- but being accidentally transgendered via transfer into someone else's body wasn't one of them.

"Pardon?" said Commander Spock at her side. "Captain, are you all right?"

Behind her, her own voice spoke up, in firm, though halfway panicky tones: "I'm not Janice Lester!"

Buffy groaned and covered her eyes with weirdly large palms. "It must be a Tuesday."

--


	2. Some Things Never Change

**Title**: Some Things Never Change 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Category**: B:tVS/ST:TOS

**Summary**: Buffy couldn't wait for Commander Scott to do his miracle-worker thing. Double drabble.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Notes**: This is a tag for my earlier shortfic, "Transporter Malfunction".

* * *

Buffy sat at a table in the officer's mess, chin propped on one outsized fist as she watched her body play 3D chess with Commander Spock. It was much more interesting than the tray in front of her; Captain Kirk's tastebuds and her own were programmed way differently, and the overly-healthy, vitamin-packed meals the food replicators made always tasted off to her anyway.

She couldn't wait for Commander Scott to do his miracle-worker thing and give them their own bodies back. Things had been weird when Faith had pulled this kind of switcheroo, too, but at least then they'd both been Slayers, and _female_. Guys really were wired differently, and she didn't just mean the mindbendiness of her first experience with morning wood. She didn't even want to _think_ about what the Captain had probably done with _her_ body.

But then again, maybe he didn't care; this wasn't even his first experience with crossgender bodyswapping! Dr. McCoy had told her more about the ship's misfortunes today than she had heard in months as a mere security ensign, and _Enterprise's_ luck apparently rivaled Sunnydale's for strangeness.

Temporary maleness aside, she was feeling more at home in this future all the time.

--


	3. Inexact Science

**Title**: Inexact Science 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: B:tVS/ST:TOS. Buffy had been walking around in a James T. Kirk suit for more than a week now. 600 words.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Notes**: Thus continues the "Transporter Malfunction" challenge drabblefic thread. Warning for treksci babble!

* * *

"Tell me you have good news," Buffy begged the _Enterprise_'s chief engineer as he and Doctor McCoy joined her and the captain in the officer's mess. She'd been walking around in a James T. Kirk suit for more than a week now, and as-- enlightening-- as it had been to get in touch with her masculine side, she was more than ready to have her own body back.

"We think we've traced the malfunction that caused the problem with the transporters," Commander Scott said with a grave nod. "It isna one we've seen before; it'll be simple enough to recreate, but I'm afraid I canna guarantee the outcome."

"I need answers, not questions, Scotty," the captain demanded. He was wearing what Buffy thought of as her Slayer General expression; looking at it from the outside, she could almost understand why the Scoobies had been so irritated with her that last year in Sunnydale.

Doctor McCoy glanced at Commander Scott, then grimaced apologetically at the captain. "Well, we already know the situation isn't the same as what you've faced before," he said cautiously. "The transfer isn't wearing off on its own, and physical contact hasn't reversed the effects."

And how. Wrestling with the captain in imitation of his fight with that madwoman, Janice Lester, had been a weird experience for Buffy; in some ways, it had been like the body-swapped fight with Faith all over again, but with the added complication that she had had to be wary of her own body's strength. Captain Kirk was in exceptional shape for a human male (boy, was he ever), but he was still no match for mystically enhanced muscles. He hadn't said anything about it to her yet, but she'd noticed him deliberately holding back in their mock battles, and knew he'd have big questions when this was over.

She wasn't sure yet what she was going to tell him-- although she might not even have to, if her physical memories were seeping into his consciousness the way his were into hers. She'd awakened several times from pulse-pounding nightmares whose events were recognizable from the stories McCoy had told her, and that afternoon she'd known Kirk was going to castle his chessmen before he'd even reached for the pieces. Regardless of what he'd picked up from her in return, though, her days of coasting through the future in anonymity were obviously over.

Actually, she was kind of looking forward to it. No more pretending to be what she wasn't.

Commander Scott gave an unhappy sigh. "We've examined the transporter's logs, and there was an unexplained surge in the pattern buffer during transport. The _matter_ rematerialization sequences were not affected, but the phase transition coils had problems differentiating the _energy_ being carried by your nervous systems." He shook his head. "We're lucky you were the only ones affected. We can recreate it, but 'tis an inexact science; there's a chance it may make the problem worse, not better."

McCoy shook his head, a grim expression on his face. "You know, this is _exactly_ why I don't appreciate having my atoms scattered through space by that thing."

Buffy shuddered. Nervous system energy? In other words-- souls? What was worse than exchanging them? _Blending_ them? The idea made her borrowed skin crawl. And yet-- given the dreams, and everything-- if they didn't do _something_, wouldn't that kind of happen anyway? She glanced over at Kirk, meeting his intent hazel gaze with her own, and waited for his decision.

The captain nodded slowly, then turned to his chief engineer. "Your reservations are noted, Scotty. Beam us apart."

--


	4. Murphy's Law, Rosenberg Corollary

**Title**: Murphy's Law, Rosenberg Corollary 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: B:tVS/ST:TOS. Willow comes through: Buffy goes home again. Unfortunately. 300 words.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Notes**: Thus concludes the "Transporter Malfunction" challenge drabblefic thread.

* * *

Several very confused minutes after Scotty initialized the Enterprise's transporter beams-- and several hundred years in the past-- Buffy discovered that it had been Willow, meddling in the flows of space and time, who'd caused the original transporter malfunction that switched the Slayer's consciousness with Captain Kirk's. Sufficiently advanced technology had hopelessly tangled with Willow's attempted retrieval spell, with unexpected effects.

The second attempt, this time deliberately coinciding with her next transport, had had much better results: those six years couldn't be taken back, but she was _home_ again... whatever that meant, in a city she'd never lived in with friends who no longer really needed her.

She'd missed a lot of things. Angel had received his Shanshu after all, and wedded his werewolf, Nina; Xander had come back from Africa to comfort Dawn after Buffy's disappearance, and they had three children now. Spike had come, and gone again, dust in yet another apocalypse, though the new Watcher's Council expected him back again any day; Willow and Kennedy were still together, but Robin and Faith were not. The formerly rogue Slayer was now palling around with a former associate of Angel's named Illyria, kicking demon ass somewhere out in China.

Buffy almost wished they'd left her where she was. Still, that was nothing new. Life went on; she Slayed, she went back to school, and she relearned the rhythms of life in the twenty-first century. If sometimes she got out a chessboard and thought wistfully of the future she'd left behind, no one noticed...

...and if a captain who'd discovered himself alone and still inexplicably strengthened on a transporter platform queried Earth's records obsessively in search of references to the missing ensign, only Spock ever knew.

It would be a long time, for both of them, before they met again.

--


	5. Singing to the Man

**Title**: Singing To The Man 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Category**: B:tVS/Star Trek 4

**Summary**: _James T. Kirk spots a familiar face in the middle of his grand adventure to the year 1986_. 800 words.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Notes**: Challenge fic. Apparently, I wasn't done with this story after all...

* * *

Somewhere in the middle of James T. Kirk's grand adventure to the year 1986, between his exhilaration at having Spock back and the overriding mission to locate and transport a pair of whales back to his own time, he remembered a certain long-lost ensign he'd briefly traded bodies with almost twenty years before. The incident had left him inexplicably stronger and quicker to heal than the average human being, and had even retarded the aging process to a certain degree, but he hadn't thought about the woman herself since the last of the nightmares had faded away.

For months, he'd been convinced that she'd been a time traveler from the late twentieth or early twenty-first century, and had obsessively checked the historical records for her name. He'd seen enough of her memories to know that she herself had been convinced of it, at least. And none of the logic Spock had applied to the subject had ever convinced him otherwise. Eventually, however, after failing to turn up even one reference to her in a year of searching, he'd given up and let her memory fade.

But now here he was, back in the late twentieth century. If her records had somehow been deleted between her actual lifetime and his own century, they might still exist in the current timeline. Surely it couldn't hurt to look her up while he was here? Just to be sure?

He made a mental note of it, hoping he'd have a chance to test his theory out later. In the meantime, however, he had other things to worry about. Dr. Taylor was leading his tour group down a spiral staircase to a window in the side of the tank displaying the Maritime Cetacean Institute's prized pair of humpback whales. They were perfect; a male and a female in a contained space, where they could be beamed up without too much difficulty.

"Here's a much better way to see George and Gracie," the doctor announced, standing with her back to the window. "Underwater."

Jim turned to make another comment to Spock, and abruptly noticed that his science officer was nowhere to be found. Just what was that Vulcan up to now?

Whale song broke out over the facility's speakers as Jim continued to look for his friend, and the other members of the tour group murmured, reacting to the sound. One little girl in particular seemed delighted; she was maybe five years old, and blonde, tugging at her mother's sleeve and pointing at the whales.

Jim let his eyes follow her gesture, smiling at the girl's excitement, as Dr. Taylor continued her lecture. "What you're hearing is whale song," she explained. "It is sung by the male. He'll sing anywhere from six to as long as thirty minutes--"

She continued speaking after that, but Jim didn't hear it. He'd finally spotted what the girl was pointing at; she wasn't gesturing at the whales at all, but Spock, floating in the water behind Dr. Taylor. He was swimming with the whales, pressing his hand against one; Jim knew a mind-meld when he saw one. What the hell was Spock thinking? Someone was going to see him! In fact, someone already had!

"Maybe he's singing to the man," the little girl chirped, loudly, breaking in over the doctor's continuing speech.

"Buffy!" her mother shushed her, and Jim's brain froze.

It couldn't be her, could it? The mystery ensign from his past? He wanted to say something to her-- but even if it was her, he was from her _future_. By at least twenty years, by the looks of things. She had the same eyes, he could see that as he looked closer, and the same chin; the mother's hair was all wrong, but he could see in her bone structure the shadow of the young woman he'd known as well.

It _was_ her. So close, and yet so far.

Behind and above him, he heard Dr. Taylor cursing, and a clatter of footsteps on metal stairs. With a wrench, he broke his attention away from the girl and turned to pursue the marine biologist before she could do anything rash to Spock.

At least he'd have a better window now to start his searches again. California, with a birthdate in the early nineteen-eighties. He didn't think he'd find any more answers to his questions there than he had before, but at least it was something.

And who knew, this might not be the last chance he had to go voyaging into the past. He'd just have to hope he could hit the twenty-aughts next time. For now, though, he had an angry scientist to wrangle, a partially amnesiac friend to collect, and a world to save.

All in a day's work for the Captain of the Enterprise.

--


	6. Making a Difference

**Title**: Making a Difference 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Category**: B:tVS/Star Trek 7

**Summary**: _Buffy takes an unexpected detour on a magical journey and ends up on Viridian III_. 1400 words.

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Notes**: Challenge fic. Kirk ran across the wrong Buffy by accident; now it's Buffy's chance to do the same. (There will be at least one more chapter to this series).

* * *

Buffy flexed her hand around the amulet Willow had given her and prepared to activate it.

"There's this-- this nexus," the witch had told her, "although really, it's more like a big energy ribbon, running through all times and all dimensions. We can't exactly reach it from Earth, but it's passed close enough to a few demon worlds before for them to figure out what it does and write books about it. Giles found one in that big estate auction a few weeks ago, and Dawn knows enough about portals now that she can open one right to it, or help me hook it into a spell. All of which means, voila-- we finally have a way of going anywhere, anywhen! Well, you do, anyway; it'll only work for someone who shares Dawn's blood. And you'll have to be careful not to let go of the amulet part-way through and get stuck in the nexus; they say most people that stop there never come back out again."

The temptation to ask her friend right then for an amulet that would go back to the place and time Willow had fetched her from the year before had been very tempting. She'd promised to go on the mission to retrieve the vital whatever-it-was Giles needed that Angel's son Connor was convinced he'd seen in Quartoth, though, and she wouldn't go back on her word.

Afterward, though, there'd be nothing stopping her. She still had her ensign's uniform rattling around somewhere; she'd suit up and make Willow send her back. She'd built a life there and moved on after the original incident that had stranded her more than two hundred years forward and a couple universes to the right; after six years, her friends had all moved on too, with successful lives of their own. None of them, including Buffy, had seemed to have any idea what to do with her once Will brought her back, and the situation hadn't improved over the last several months.

It had been nice to see them all again, and it would be nice to be able to properly say goodbye this time, but Buffy was more than ready to rejoin her friends on the _Enterprise_ security team. Not to mention the attractive, interesting, enigmatic hunk of manflesh who served as the ship's Captain, whom she'd just started to really get to know before Willow yanked her back. No one expected anything of her there, other than that she do her job properly-- and even if her Slayer nature had been widely known, she still wouldn't have been that much of an oddity on the crew, given the variety of aliens and part-aliens aboard. It was a weird, eclectic society, but it was one she fit into, and it was one where nobody knew anything about her past that she hadn't told them; she missed it very much.

That was for later, though. In the here and now, she had a mission to do. She squeezed the amulet in her hand more tightly, and closed her eyes as it exploded in a wash of heat and green light.

When the light faded, Buffy found herself abruptly standing on a mountaintop. She looked around in confusion for a couple of moments, comparing the scenery to what she'd heard of Quartoth; it wasn't exactly paradise, but it wasn't exactly the land of fire and brimstone, either. There was some strange scaffolding set up a little ways away from her, and--

--a shining energy ribbon overhead?

--and three other people, one of whom had abruptly appeared out of nowhere as she watched?

Buffy groaned. Trust Willow to invent a foolproof new means of transportation that somehow still managed to get tangled in a metaphysical traffic jam of some kind. She expected major cookies for this when she got back.

She lifted her hand again, prepared to squeeze the amulet a second time to initiate the return journey-- fortunately, it was supposed to work no matter _where_ exactly she ended up. Before she could activate it, however, she suddenly recognized one of the men in front of her, and her heart caught in her throat.

He looked so much-- older-- than he did in her memories. His waist had thickened considerably, and his hair had gone all wiry and iron gray with the passage of years; he was no longer the smooth-cheeked golden god she had known during her sojourn in the alternate future. And yet, there was no mistaking those hazel eyes, the determined set of that jaw, or the way he threw himself into physical battle against the guy up on the scaffolding.

Kirk. James T. Kirk, Captain of the _Enterprise_. Or whatever other titles or ships he'd acquired in the years since she'd left him behind so suddenly.

He'd won his hand-to-hand battle while she stood there gawking, knocking out his opponent; the third guy, a tall, bald man with a similar uniform and the same kind of erect bearing, was trying to deactivate some kind of machine, though it had just gone invisible on him.

"Kirk!" the man called desperately. "There's a control pad in his right pocket!"

She didn't want to distract them, but there was no way she could leave now, not with him so close. Maybe he'd be able to tell her where her other self was? She'd have to ask him the stardate, too, so when she went back and then to the earlier future and lived out the however many years between that time and this, she could call him up and laugh about their history of temporal malfunctions. She smiled at the thought and started walking toward him, intending to offer whatever help he might need while he did whatever Captain-y thing he was here to do.

She was still walking when the disruptor blast surged up from the enemy's fallen form.

"No!" she screamed, running forward, her attention all for the collapsing Captain. She was dimly aware of the platform going visible again, of something firing off into the sky and arcing back to ground, and of more scuffling going on between the bad guy and the other Captain-type person, but she couldn't have cared less. She dropped to her knees at Kirk's side just in time to see his eyes flutter open, and pressed his hand in hers in an effort to offer comfort.

She already knew she could offer nothing else, not even if she were a healer. She'd been a security officer; she knew what disruptors did to the human body, and she'd seen where it hit.

He stared at her a long moment-- but there was no recognition in his eyes. Just puzzlement. Then he looked up at the other guy, his ally, and murmured, "Nice shot."

The bald guy shot an equally puzzled-- and warning-- look at her, too, then turned back to Kirk and replied, cradling the captain's head in his lap. "I'll find a way to contact the _Enterprise_," he said, in a resonant voice that reminded her a little of Giles. "You're going to be all right."

"Did we do it? Did we make a difference?" Kirk asked.

He had to ask? Buffy thought, numbly, remembering the events she'd lived through-- and heard about-- during her time on the Enterprise. The man was constitutionally incapable of failing to make a difference. He was Captain Kirk.

Just not _her_ Kirk. Somehow.

"Yes," the second guy said, then paused. "Thank you."

"Least I could do," Kirk replied, coughing, "for a Captain of the _Enterprise_."

Buffy didn't hear whatever words passed between them after that; she was watching his face as it turned up to the sun-- the little smile that hovered on his lips, then slipped away as the life left him.

A Captain of the _Enterprise_. _A_ Captain. Two of them, in fact. But neither of them the one she'd known.

Buffy finally let go of the Kirk's still hand and staggered back to her feet, glancing back at the still-living, unnamed Captain. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I shouldn't be here."

"Who are you?" he asked, in return. "Were you working with Soran?"

She shook her head, still half-choked with stymied grief. "I'm no one," she said, then reactivated her amulet at last.

So far, and yet so close. Next time, she'd do it on purpose-- and get it right.

--


	7. A Possessive Species

**Title**: A Possessive Species

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: _"So, another temporal refugee with an axe to grind," he said cheerily, smirking at her_. 1400 words.

**Spoilers**: This part set after Star Trek XI (2009)

**Notes**: This concludes my Temporal Malfunction series (which has nothing to do with my other Star Trek series). Having begun as crack!fic, this was never exactly my best work; still, it was fun, and it always bothers me when I leave things unfinished. I originally intended another ending, but then STXI happened, so-- I think this ending is as appropriate as any other.

* * *

Kirk slowed as he approached Ambassador Spock's house-- or Selek's, or whatever else he was calling himself these days to keep the Temporal Police off his back-- and furrowed his brow. Were those raised voices he'd heard? Given how much more acute Vulcan hearing was than human, it would have to be a _really_ stringent argument for him to hear it all the way out here.

He debated with himself for a moment about whether or not he should let Selek know he was there before he overheard anything he shouldn't-- these days, he tried to at least _nod_ in the direction of responsibility before acting-- but the benefits of doing so weren't appealing enough for him to go through with it. Instead, he slowed to a halt before the clay-brown door, glanced around to make sure no one was paying him any attention, and pressed his cupped hand and ear against its surface.

"--wrong reality _again_," a distressed voice-- a female voice?-- was saying. She sounded seriously upset, and suspiciously human. What was she doing in the half-Vulcan's quarters? It almost sounded as though she was another interchronolinear refugee, but how the hell had she got there?

"Your distress is understandable," the rumbling, empathetic voice of Selek replied. "I, too, experienced a considerable degree of dismay when he perished in my timeline, in much the manner you have described. However, this timeline is not without its merits; he is young again, here, some few years younger than yourself in fact, and much the same in spirit as he ever was."

"But he won't _know_ me," the woman said, irritably, as a chill crept up Jim's spine. Were they talking about _him_? Was this some woman who'd been important to him in the other world?

--Did he really even want to know? He'd decided, early on in his dual friendship with the Spocks, that he couldn't allow himself to be bound by the echoes of the other Kirk's personal life that he'd picked up in that catastrophic meld on Delta Vega. He wanted to appreciate things for what they _were_, and for what might be possible in the here and now, not what they might have been for yet another heroic Kirk whose preserved-as-perfect image he couldn't possibly live up to.

Before he could make up his mind on the issue, Selek continued. Jim kept listening, fascinated despite himself.

"And perhaps that is for the best," the Ambassador soothed his unseen conversational partner. "Though the transporter error that exchanged your forms did leave you and the Captain Kirk of my time with a profound understanding of one another's fundamental natures, establishing such a connection without first exploring the mysteries of social interaction in a more organic manner can in fact prevent the type of deeper acquaintance you appear to desire."

"Speaking from personal experience, are we?" the woman replied, suddenly wry. It was starting to really itch at Jim that he couldn't see her, and had no idea what her facial responses were, but he was risking Selek discovering him just _standing_ here. The jig would be completely up if he tried to so much as crack the door open or find a window to spy through.

He could perfectly picture Selek's side of the conversation, though. For example, the eyebrow that would climb his forehead with the answer: "I have no comment on the matter."

"I just bet," she grumbled. "So what are you saying, here? You want me to go away? I'm not just here because of him, you know; I got used this century, and trying to go back to the twenty-first after six years in Starfleet was the kind of fun that's really not. I've got my amulet; I can always try again, and find out whether you're right or not about whether we would've got along. 'Cause I'm really not all that inclined to just take your word for it and move on."

"Can you not consider remaining in _this_ timeline and explore the possibilities available to you afresh?" Selek asked, carefully.

"But why should I?" she demanded; and pretty reasonably, Jim thought. If he had some kind of magic reality hopping device, he would-- well, not use it to change _permanently_, because even with all its faults he was kind of attached to the timeline he lived in, thank you very much-- but he might like to at least get to meet his father, or exchange professional tips with a Jim Kirk who'd actually been prepared for his job. Of _course_ she'd be as attached to the reality she'd actually lived in as he was to his own. He might expect _his_ Spock to have trouble understanding that, but Selek really should know better after all his time around humans. They were a pretty possessive species.

"I am aware that this line of argument may hold very little weight for you," Selek tried again, "but I would greatly prefer it if you did not. The sequence of events that led to this new reality is fragile enough as it is. Should you alter the destiny of my... of the Jim Kirk that I left behind, it would be impossible to predict the effects on the reality in which we currently exist."

Or-- maybe Jim was wrong, and Selek understood human possessiveness after all. He spared a brief moment to wonder what it would be like to be the focus of _all_ that half-Vulcan intensity-- because he wasn't ever likely to feel it first-hand, not with Uhura quite rightly taking up the center of _his_ Spock's life-- then shook his head and decided he'd heard enough. He stepped away long enough to tug his gold tunic back into order, then announced his presence with a knock.

There was a sudden silence inside; then the door swung smoothly open.

"Greetings, old friend," Selek welcomed him, as had become their habit. The little smile-that-wasn't-quite-a-smile he usually wore had been replaced by something else, though; but not worry or irritation or any of the other emotions Jim had been expecting. Instead, there was-- anticipation?

She must really be something else, he thought warily as he nodded in reply. "Good to see you too," he said, gaze slipping past Selek to search the rest of the room for its other occupant. "The _Enterprise_ is here for a couple of days with some new equipment for the colony, so I thought I'd stop by and say hello."

"Indeed," Selek said; and _there_ was the not-a-smile, appearing as he stepped aside.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," the other voice muttered-- and then Jim saw her.

Short, was his first thought; at least a head shorter than he was. Blonde; hair about the color of his mother's, but straighter, pulled back in a ponytail. Green eyes, narrowed at him; a cute face, though made more serious by a really firm set to her chin; a nice if petite figure under a uniform vaguely similar to his own. Red fabric, though; if that meant what it did here, she would be support staff of some kind. Security, maybe, given her leanly muscled build.

"Jim, this is Ensign Buffy Summers," Selek introduced them, voice firm. "Ensign Summers, this is Captain James T. Kirk of the _USS Enterprise_."

Yeah, no; after all he'd heard, Jim wasn't going to do the dance of diplomacy with this one. "So, another temporal refugee with an axe to grind," he said cheerily, smirking at her. "Want to come up and see my ship before you try and rewrite us out of existence?"

She blinked, disrupting the glare she'd had going. "You heard us arguing?" she asked, sounding surprised. Then she snorted and shot a wry, sideways glance at Selek. "Of course you did."

"You will not regret it," Selek informed her, tone softening.

"I guess you would know about that, too," Summers volleyed back, raising an eyebrow of her own. Then she sighed and turned her focus back to Jim. "Why the hell not. I've never got exactly what I wanted _before_, why should this be any different?"

Really something special, he thought again, impressed by the force of personality in her stare. She was practically _daring_ him to disappoint her. Honestly, if she'd known 'him' at all, then she should know better...

Jim grinned suddenly, better understanding Selek's anticipation, and braced himself for a challenge.

-fin-


End file.
